The Beneficial Institute
T HE B ENEFICIAL I NSTITUTE
T HIS PLACE LOOKS MORE like a medieval fortress than a restful retreat for those ailing,” observed Oliver in surprise.
The full bulk of the Institute loomed up out of the dark—it was a structure of formidable scale.
They climbed out of the Singer and approached the door.
Molly suddenly said, “Wait, where are we going to stay for the night? We can’t possibly drive back to London.”
“We passed an inn on the road coming in here right on the outskirts of Falmouth. I’m sure we can get a couple of rooms there,” said Oliver.
“But won’t that be expensive?”
“Didn’t I say? This entire trip is courtesy of the War Office. It was the very least they could do,” he added bluntly.
Oliver knocked on the door, and it was opened by an elderly matron dressed all in white. They explained who they were. She nodded and said, “Dr. Stephens told me of your visit. Please come this way.”
They followed her down a long stone hallway dimly lit with a string of bulbs. The interior was vast, high ceilinged, and also cold and uninviting, thought Molly. She could see why her mother had not rallied here. She pulled her coat tighter around her.
The matron rapped on a door marked OFFICE .
A soft voice said, “Enter.”
She opened the door and ushered them in to meet Dr. Thaddeus Stephens. He was a small man with white whiskers and rumpled hair. He was dressed in country tweeds with a bowtie that was a bit askew.
“Ah, Miss Wakefield, so good of you to come,” he said, shaking her hand. He turned to the others. “And you must be Ignatius Oliver,” he said, shaking his hand as Oliver introduced Charlie.
“May I please go and see my mother now?” said Molly.
“Yes, at once.”
He led them through a labyrinth of hallways, their footfalls echoing off the walls.
“This looks like an old castle or fortress,” noted Oliver.
Stephens nodded. “I believe that is exactly what it once was. Abandoned for a long time, but perfect for our patients. Peaceful and isolated. At least it was before the war,” he added in a grim tone.
He led them up a short flight of stone steps until they came to a room with a brass name holder.
Molly read off the name: ELOISE MARY WAKEFIELD . Molly hadn’t yet turned eleven when she’d last seen her mother. Will she even recognize me?
Stephens unlocked the door. That it would be locked surprised Molly, but she supposed it was for safety reasons.
He motioned them in.
Molly gingerly stepped over the threshold, as though she were about to enter a venue holding unpleasantness and even terror for her.
The room held a bed, a chair, a table, a lamp, and an old, battered armoire. Molly’s glances shot across the space and fixed on the large monogrammed steamer trunk set next to the armoire. She instantly recognized it as her mother’s. It had been bought at Harrods. As a child she had loved to run her fingers along the stylishly threaded letters of her mother’s initials.
Then Molly leveled her gaze on the person in the bed.
She blinked several times and still that did not seem to help. She looked at Oliver and Charlie, who were also staring at the woman.
Molly felt something touch her shoulder and she jumped.
Stephens advised, “Why don’t you go sit by the bed, Molly? If you speak to her quietly and gently, she might rally a bit.”
Molly crept over to the bed and sat down. She thought after Dr. Stephens’s warning letter that she would be looking at an emaciated woman with a bony face clinging to life. But her mother looked bloated; her skin, instead of being pulled tight against her facial bones, seemed to float above them, like a full pond with submerged logs.
Eloise Wakefield’s hair was shot thickly with gray, the beautiful auburn locks of Molly’s childhood gone forever. Even with the bloat, her mother’s face was heavily lined, the etch work like whorls on fingertips. She appeared smaller than Molly remembered. But then Molly remembered that she had grown over seven inches in the interim, while her mother had not only not advanced a jot during that time, but seemed, instead, to have shrunk in stature.
She reached out and tentatively touched her mother’s exposed hand. It was puffy and coarse looking, the nails irregular and jagged, nothing like the elegant, refined hand of Molly’s youthful memories. And she found her mother warm, disturbingly so.
“Mummy? It’s me, Molly.”
Her mother’s eyes did not open. They were periwinkle blue, and Molly had always loved those eyes.
“Mummy?”
The eyelids quivered now, then opened, closed, and opened once more, holding this time. The pupils drifted from side to side, reaching Molly then passing back before once more swinging to her daughter and then remaining on her.
Molly noted what looked to be crusted, reddened wounds that were present in the corners of both of her mother’s eye sockets.
The smile emerged on her mother’s face like a crack opening along an eggshell.
“Mummy? Do you recognize me? I’m Molly.”
Never did Molly think she would have to introduce herself to her mother.
But the hand she was holding squeezed hers just a bit and her mother’s mouth moved, though nothing came out at first. Then—
“M-Molly?”
“Molly, yes. It’s Molly. I’m here, Mummy.”
The smile broadened and spread across her face, the eyes lifted, the delicate cheekbones raised as the doughy, translucent skin receded a bit. A strand of hair drifted into her mother’s face, and Molly moved it back into place.
And that was when she glimpsed the vertical scar near her mother’s right temple. It pulsated thick, dark, and brutish against the pale skin.
She was brought back from staring at it when she felt a hand on her face.
She looked down and saw her mother’s trembling fingers slowly drifting over her skin, like a blind woman Molly had once seen do to someone she had met for the first time.
But clearly her mother could see her.
“Molly?”
“Yes, your daughter, Molly. I’m here, Mummy.” Tears formed in Molly’s eyes and then drained down her cheeks. “I’ve missed you so much, Mummy. I love you so much.”
“Missed… Molly.”
And then the hand withdrew and the eyes closed and that, apparently, was that. Eloise Wakefield fell back asleep.
“She tires very easily, but she seemed quite happy to see you,” Stephens said kindly. “I was quite astonished when she asked for you by name. She had not been… communicative in a long while.”
Molly reluctantly let go of her mother’s hand and rose. “That… scar at her temple? And those holes around her eye sockets?”
“Yes, yes, we can talk about all that later. I’m sure after your long journey you and your friends need a good night’s rest.”
“There’s an inn near Falmouth that we passed,” offered Oliver.
“Oh, no, we have a small cottage here on the grounds for visitors. You’re welcome to it.”
“Are you sure?” said Molly. “I would like to be as near to her as possible.”
“I am very sure. We’ll get you settled and, though the hour is late, you can meet my colleague, Dr. Foyle.”
He led them out and locked the door behind him.
Molly said, “I wouldn’t think she could get out of bed.”
“We like to take precautions,” said Stephens vaguely. “It is best to.”
He led them back down the hall in silence.